My Silke chicks are 2-3 days old. The oldest that hatched first, by maybe 14 hours or so, I brought the waterer over to yesterday to let it have some water. The mother was not coming off the nest. It took a couple sips and appeared to gag, but then stopped. I thought maybe it drank to quickly. Today, I brought the waterer over to them and it drank and drank and then started to do the gagging thing, closed it's eyes and fell over like it was dead. It wasn't moving and I could not see breath. I massage it some-what like you would do for a bad crop, but felt nothing in the crop obviously, and did get a little tiny mucousy liquid to come out. I say tiny because there was no stream. I could wipe the beak with my fingers. I did that a couple times and blew in the chicks beak and it tried to chirp. At first the chirp was strained and then it eventually cleared and chirped loudly. I brought it into the house and wet some chick feed to see if it would eat. It ate fine. It was just chirping and chirping. I tried to give it water to see what it would do, but it didn't want any. Did the slight beak dip and it drank whatever bit was on it's beak, but that was it. I did not force the issue. I put it back out with the mother because it seemed so miserable with the constant chirping. It huddled under her, came back out to nibble at some food at the edge of the nest and then went back under. Sine it has gagged twice when drinking, do you think something is wrong? I am not sure if it's right to leave it with the mother or just bring it back inside... If it can eat ok, shouldn't it be able to drink ok? Do you think it just got it's beak too low in the water both times or something? Just concerned. It's a cute little thing. Thanks for any thoughts you might have to share. By the way, I do not know anything about the genetics other than they were supposed to be eggs from Cuckoo Silkies. Of the 6, 4 eggs hatched out, three look like what I assume Cuckoos look like and one that is having trouble looks like a light buff with some partridge. Not quite sure how we got that, but it has nice toes. The others all have imperfect feet.
